Tip 113: The size of your slide set is irrelevant
People often ask me how many slides they should put into their presentations. The rule of thumb seems to be to have one slide for every minute of the presentation. For example, 30 slides for a 30 minute presentation. However, I don’t like this attitude.
Having a "1-minute per slide" rule is really not helpful.
In fact, it limits creativity and results in monotonous presentations that all progress at the industry-standard rate of 1-slide-per-minute!
You should not even think about how many slides are in your presentation. The question is what you do with each slide, not for how long it is up on the projector screen.
I have seen a speaker using 2 slides for a 1-hour presentation. I have someone using 10 slides for a 1-hour presentation. I have even seen someone using almost 300 slides for a 45-minute presentation! All of these were fantastic, top-notch presentations.
Typically, some slides will be used for several minutes while others (such as those with graphics, pictures or cartoons) can be flashed by in a few seconds to illustrate your point. Both of these strategies are perfectly acceptable. Your slides support your talk. Use as many or as few as you need to make your point.
Your audience and you should not even be conscious of how many slides have been used. You cannot dictate how long to spend on each slide. What matters is not how many slides you have, but what use you put them to and how they integrate with the rest of your presentation, and with your spoken word in particular.
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